Erma Bombeck Quotes

If we allow our one-and-a-half year old to "help" us fold laundry he will learn something about buttons, zippers, snaps, where things go, the physical properties of cloth, what happens when you drop it, how easy or hard it is to carry compared with everything else he has ever carried, what clean clothes smell like, how a big towel can turn into a small bundle, how the small bundle you just folded can turn into a big towel again, plus any songs we care to sing or stories or related or unrelated facts we care to pass on.

I've always had a knack for hitting the mark perfectly. Even when I'm walking or running, I'm very good at not having to look down.

Those children who have been most chastised seldom make the best men.

I've learned to climb a tree pretty fast.

I'm a very coordinated individual.

In the first year of a child's life we teach them to walk and talk. And then for the rest of their lives we want them to sit down and be quiet.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

...the more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury. Boys should be allowed to climb tall trees and walk along the tops of high walls and dive into the sea from high rocks... The same with girls. I like the type of child who takes risks. Better by far than the one who never does so.

Good parents have children who do terrible things and vice-versa.

Raising a child is like taking care of someone who's on way too many shrooms, while you yourself are on a moderate amount of shrooms. I am not confident in my decisions, but I know you should not be eating a mousepad.

How many really capable men are children more than once during the day!

I tried to allow my children to take risks, to test themselves. Better broken bones than broken spirit.

What best defines a child is the total inability to receive information from anything not plugged in.

There's nothing better than being able to give your children wings so they can soar and fly in the direction they want to go in.

Children, who have yet to learn our ways, are notoriously promiscuous in their affection. They’ll sit on anyone’s knee.

My impression is that a sense of rhythm, which has no analog in language, is unique and that its correlation with movement is unique to human beings. Why else would children start to dance when they're two or three? Chimpanzees don't dance.

The activity of the child has always been looked upon as an expression of his vitality.

Yes, it is true that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that's something you might have to consider.

If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.

Recently a young mother asked for advice. What, she wanted to know, was she to do with a 7-year-old who was obstreperous, outspoken, and inconveniently willful? "Keep her," I replied.... The suffragettes refused to be polite in demanding what they wanted or grateful for getting what they deserved. Works for me.

Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand.

Sports is good for health and for children, it gives them manhood, courage, teaches them team work and coordination. Sports is something that is so crucial, it makes everything.

Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.

One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it.

All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.